Daily life of a cultivation judge-Chapter 1142 - The haunting shadow of the golden era (2)

1142: The haunting shadow of the golden era (2)

1142: The haunting shadow of the golden era (2)

She let out a soft sigh, pulling herself back from the spiraling thoughts.

She could wonder, wish, and even replay the scenarios how many times she wanted, but none of them could alter her present—not even in the slightest.

All that those imagined outcomes managed to do was only further deepen her pain, taunting her with false endings and impossible hopes of how things could have been if only the past had played out differently.

There was no unringing that bell, no matter how much she desperately wished for it.

The only choice she had now was to endure the sound—accept its tragic tune—in the fragile hope that, maybe someday, it would finally stop.

She sighed again, the weight of despondency settling deeper within her.

“Upon agreeing to let that rogue cultivator keep his life, our clan elder and the rest left him behind in the mysterious realm as they hurried back to the clan with the hawthorn,” Xia Fang continued.

“Once they returned, despite being the one who brought it back—and thus having every right to claim it—our clan elder handed it over to the clan for collective discussion on how to use it,” she said, a faint trace of admiration in her tone.

Even Yang Qing couldn’t help but raise his brow slightly at the elder’s decision.

A four-petaled Celestial Light Hawthorn was no ordinary treasure—it was a dao natural treasure capable of reshaping a person’s fate.

Cultivators had acted selfishly for far less, and considering the hawthorn’s value, as long as you weren’t a delusional hypocrite, few would have justifications to begrudge him if he had chosen to keep it for himself.

“The clan deliberated and eventually decided that instead of using the flower on a single person, they would divide its parts and distribute them among the members who showed the most promise across the three realms.

What remained after, was then shared among the senior figures of the clan, with the elder who retrieved it and those who accompanied him to the mysterious realm receiving priority—along with other generous compensation from the clan for parting with the flower,” Xia Fang explained.

“Fast forward a thousand years, and that flower became one of the largest contributing factors to the arrival of our golden era—when we had eight late-stage palace realm cultivators and over a dozen other palace realm experts within the clan,” she continued.

“The clan patriarch, who was said to have a high chance of reaching the domain realm… he was one of the beneficiaries of the flower,” Xia Fang added.

“Parts of it were used to establish his foundations when he was preparing to break through to the foundation establishment realm.

Which no doubt must have played a significant role in him acquiring gold-grade pillars during his breakthrough—and later, a gold-grade core in the core formation realm.”

Her voice grew softer, tinged with distant admiration.

“He became the first person in the Xia clan’s history to achieve both—and the youngest of the eight late-stage palace realm experts.”

A faint smile touched her lips, but it quickly turned bitter.

“Most of the experts who rose during that time achieved their results largely thanks to the celestial light hawthorn,” Xia Fang said.

“Even that clan elder who found it received a significant share of the clan’s support and resources for his contributions, which helped him rise into becoming one of the eight late-stage palace realm experts at the time.”

She paused briefly, her pupils trembling.

“It’s sad though,” she added, shaking her head slightly, a wistful smile playing on her lips.

“That flower created our golden era… but it was also what doomed us,” she weakly finished.

“The karma we sowed back then came back with a vengeance—wearing the face of the rogue cultivator’s son,” Xia Fang continued, her voice growing frailer with each word.

“He brought with him the sword of retribution for losing both his father and his mother, who had died in quick succession of each other.

It turns out his father needed the celestial light hawthorn to purge his wife’s body of the devouring lily cauldron phantom spider that had invaded her.

That was why he was so desperate—she didn’t have long,” Xia Fang explained.

Yang Qing’s expression twisted slightly at the mention of the spirit beast’s name.

The devouring lily cauldron phantom spider was an insidious creature—one that could send shivers up the spine of even the most seasoned of cultivators, and with good reason.

The spirit beast possessed an insidious parasitizing ability, and its preferred prey was human cultivators.

With its exceptional camouflage, it could bypass even the most refined spiritual senses—down to a cultivator’s sixth sense.

Its body could become incorporeal, as light and undetectable as a passing breeze, allowing it to infiltrate a cultivator’s body without them realizing they’d been invaded.

Once inside, it would activate an innate ability that accelerated the cultivator’s progress by forcefully overdriving and over-invigorating their latent talent.

In fact, that sudden surge in cultivation speed was often one of the few clues that would alert someone as to its presence.

That unexplained, rapid advancement with no apparent cause.

But that progress came at a steep price.

One of the most immediate costs was the victim’s lifespan.

The spider’s ability functioned similarly to the taboo arts some cultivators used as last-resort trump cards in life-and-death situations.

Just like those self-destructive techniques, the spider’s power inflicted devastating harm on the host’s body, its target being the person’s vitality.

The overdrawing of a victim’s latent potential leads to a rapid decrease in their lifespan, even as their cultivation base advances.

This condition remained unchanged and no matter how much their cultivation improved, their remaining years would just continue to dwindle.

The higher they climb, the faster their lifespan drains away, until every last drop of their potential is forcibly exhausted.

At that point, their body would undergo a horrifying transformation where they become a living cauldron that houses a special fluid the spider would consume to enhance its strength.

This fluid acted as a heavenly tonic, which the devouring lily cauldron phantom spider relied on when breaking through major bottlenecks between realms, such as advancing from the core formation realm to the palace realm.

The fluid was a distilled essence of everything the cultivator once was—their qi, blood, cultivation base, and even their blood and soul essence.

Bit by bit, the spider transformed its victim’s entire being into that tonic.

It was this grisly process that earned the spider the “cauldron” in its name—because it reduced its hosts into nothing more than vessels used to brew the tonic it needed for its breakthrough, which it also does within the host’s body.

Once this entire process begins, the victim is usually too helpless to stop it…

except.